Bangkok is saturated by bright blues, greens, oranges, yellows, and of course, pinks. Why so bright, Bangkok? It’s not just for fun; in fact, the colors here have meaning.
Each day of the week is associated with a certain color:
Your lucky color depends on what day of the week you’re born on. Because the king of Thailand, King Bhumibol, was reputedly born on a Monday, yellow reigned as the celebrated royal color for many years. Recently, however, there has been confusion over the day of his birth – it has been argued he was in fact born on a Tuesday since he was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the time difference would mean it was a Tuesday back in Thailand.
Either way, yellow took a back seat to pink after the political unrest involving the aptly-named Yellow Shirts versus the Red Shirts starting in 2006. The meaning of both the colors red and yellow became further convoluted by the riots and, after emerging from the hospital sporting a pink shirt and blazer, the king set a new pink precedent that brings us to where we are today.
Pink is neutral. Pink is safe. Pink is, as far as I can tell, Bangkok’s Favorite Color.
For more (and credit to):
We went to East Atlanta today,a bohemian in-town area, but we didn’t see any pink cars. Stopped in on an Asian market, but no pink eggs either! I guess the Thai trend hasn’t made it to Atlanta yet!
Haha no surprises there…
Wait was it as easy to find as you makes it sound.. – all the pink color..? Otherwise there could be an information bias…But i also remember observing pink in Bangkok but certainly no food items! and not Eggs!
Hey Nitin! Haha that’s true about the information bias since I was indeed walking around taking pictures of things that were pink…but I wouldn’t have gotten the idea in the first place if pink weren’t such a prominent color around here. Thanks for reading by the way 🙂
Well that’s true (prevalence of pink color in prominence). I didnt doubt, I just wanted to double check. Well thanks for posting by the way 🙂
Yeaaa, I will defiantly remember not to get the pink eggs when I make it to Bangkok. hah
Hi Joey! I haven’t tried them yet but they must be popular because all the vendors sell them…
Very informative. I’ve always had a passing curiosity about those pink eggs.
Thanks, Ben! Yeah – the pink eggs were one of the first things I noticed. Wild. Thanks for reading! 🙂
Sure. Glad to see to you’re enjoying Thailand s far. Hopefully you’ll end up with a placement you enjoy too.
I love pink. Especially the pink hat and little paper wipes. Everything would be rosier if we here had more pink. I adore you and your pictures and your writing.xo
Thanks Marlene <333 love you!
Great post! I love Bangkok’s colourful taxis! One place I didn’t end up going to was the Art & Culture Center – definitely planning on it when I go back next 🙂
Yeah the taxis are wild, aren’t they? The BACC honestly wasn’t that exciting. That mural was my favorite part, I think. That whole “center” of town wasn’t even that interesting – it was just so much more touristy than the area we’ve been living in (Ramkhamhaeng/Bang Kabi)
Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of
the images aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue.
I’ve tried it in two different browsers and both show the same outcome.
Hi! Thank you, Potash, for the heads up! I really appreciate it. They seem to work on both computers I have tried…hmmm I’m the opposite of computer savvy so I don’t know how to go about trying to fix it except to remove the pictures and put them back in again. I’ll try that when I get back on my home computer.